Bring back Project Impact -- A constructive approach to disasters

[Catbird]

Remember Project Impact? This was a FEMA program to mitigate the impact of natural disasters started under Clinton and run by people who knew and cared about what they were doing. B* killed it shortly after the start of his administration. Fortunately not all references to Project Impact have been removed from the FEMA website.

Here is a brief description from a 1999 FEMA press release (http://www.fema.gov/news/newsrelease.fema?id=8895).

"Through its four-pronged program, Project Impact builds safe communities when individuals, businesses, and community leaders take the following steps:

* Identify and recruit Project Impact partners in the community
* such as local government leaders, civic and volunteer groups, businesses, and individual citizens. Determine the community's risk for falling victim to natural disasters.
* Set priorities and target resources to reduce impact of future disasters.
* Keep the entire community informed and focused on Project Impact's ability to reduce damage and costs of future disasters."


Project Impact has apparently been replaced by the Hazard Mitigation Grant Program.
http://www.fema.gov/government/grant/hmgp/index.shtm

It is possible that either structure could be effective if run by people, like Bill Clinton and James Witt, who took it seriously as an appropriate government program for disaster management. But the current administration does not have a credible track record on government action in this area, so we'll never know.

I have seen a lot of not especially constructive threads on the California fires and other recent or potential disasters in the past few days. I would like to see the discourse shift to a more productive direction. Where can people live safely? What possible changes to buildings and other parts of the infrastructure are needed to do this? How can they be implemented? What is the role of the federal and state governments in disaster management? You can probably think of better questions than this.

Lots of people on DU are advocates of specific presidential candidates. Where does your candidate stand on Project Impact vs. the Hazard Mitigation Grant Program vs. possible alternatives? If he or she does not have a position on disaster management, why not?

I did a search on Project Impact before posting this message and didn't find anything past 2005. If I missed something recent and this is essentially a duplicate post, I apologize.

[Catbird]

1. Thanks for the recommend

I don't know who you are, but I would like to thank you for the recommendation.

:) :) :) :) :)